Kids and violent games

Recently the gaming community to me has been quite different with a lot of younger children playing games for much older ages. This could kind of mess with the kids head as these games have violence and sometimes worse. What are your thoughts on this?

 

I think that the influence of violence depends on the age of the child. While those who are younger (10 and below) would be more easily influenced by playing violent games, I believe those who are older ( 11 and up) are more mature and capable of playing the games without gaining a murderous intent. I think there should be more precaution for these games so the younger kids won't gain or be influenced by the violnce in games.

 

What follows is strictly my opinion that I do not consider absolutely truth , but it is more of an observation. I think that real violence and video game violence (and violence in media in general) are two separate things. A violent individual will most likely enjoy playing violent games , or watching violent movies for that matter, but the game is not the cause of the behavior. The tendency to harm other beings in general has other psychological factors and has various causes that escape of my specialty. You can watch all the fake violence you want in games , and be shown a video of real violence in a war or in the streets and you will be shocked.

That being said , younger children are really sensitive to violence. Letting them play violent games or watch movies like that will not cause them to become violent but may traumatize them or make them extremely scarred. I have experienced that myself too , when i would watch a really violent scene from a movie or a game (my mom wouldn't know). I would think about it for days , would have nightmares and would obsess over it. So at the ages of until 8-9 at most ,violent scenes can be damaging to a child but i don't think that after that point has any effect whatsoever, if they didn't have either the tendency for it in the first place or the environmental factors to express a violent behavior independently.

 

Don't worry, if a kid is born to be violent, he/she will be, with or without games.
Meanwhile a calm person will not let that get in his head.
Yes games are more violent these days and graphics are better than ever so you can see every detail of that guy shooting the other guy's brain out, but that is why they have been age restricted, and if parents don't care about that, it's their fault that their kid is violent, if is.

 

I somehow agree to GeorgeDr. Real violence and virtual violence are two different things but for me they may or may not affect an individual whether it is a child or not. We think differently as an individual. If we have to consider the innocence of a child, it is the parent's duty to keep them on the right path. I think it is okay to let them play those kinds of games as long as there is a supervision of someone older than them who could explain things which are wrong and not to be imitated in real life. On the other hand, prevention is a cure which means it is better if they will not be exposed to these kinds of games at early age just to be sure that they would not be influenced.

 

I agree. I myself played video games as a child that would have been considered violent at the time. I am not a violent person. My children enjoy games that go along with the super heroes they play with. Initially, as an adult I was surprised going back and seeing the games and shows with our common characters like 'Ninja Turtles' and 'Spiderman'. However, I am honest enough to see that it is the same as when I was a child. My children see it through a child's eyes and they know it is not real. When we consider actual violence that can appear "real" in movies, they don't watch that. I understand the level of comprehension they have and I don't want them to have nightmares and overthink it unnecessarily. My youngest child is only 5, but for a while has been able to comprehend that a man with webs coming out of his arms can throw people, but he should not.

 

On the bus, on the cradle in the park, under the table at the restaurant, at the playground and at the cinema, on their birthday, on the top of the mountain and on the beach, the children are staring at the screens.
From very young ages, children are taught to fall asleep, to eat with their mouths on the screen, to spend hours in front of virtual reality, which they soon physically perceive as real.
And at some point, we're getting acquainted with video games, and they're still licking their mouths.
Wow, so much color, sound, fascinating worlds, in which I, the child, have so much control? Can I move things? Becoming a super hero? Killing people? I think I just want to do this all my life. And that's it. We immediately create an addiction that makes much harm to our child's body, mind and soul, but also to his social life, to his desire to live in the real world.

Starting with 2018, the World Health Organization included addiction to video games on the list of mental illnesses (source: WHO). In many countries there are special clinics for treating this addiction, unfortunately here, in Romania, we have not yet heard of this, although a growing number of parents take their children to the psychiatric wards of hospitals to receive urgent help .

 

I believe that virtual violence does not correlate with becoming a violent person. Studies have shown that playing violent videogames and doing violent things have no correlation whatsoever. Yes, select video games may desensitize your child to violence, but they will not cause your child to become a violent person. I believe that there is a very big misconception when it comes to videogames, people who did not grow up in the area that the younger generation is growing up in can't seem to wrap their heads around videogames. Videogames are being blamed for many things with no scientific proof actual backing those theories. Now videogames have become a horrible hobby because some people lept to conclusions about what side-effects they caused. To conclude, I don't believe there to be any correletion between playing video games and becoming a violent person and I think that people should open their eyes instead of seeing their own biases.

 

This topic has always been very controversial. Many parents that I know refuse to let their children/teens play games that have blood or gore for reasons that I do understand, but at the same time, I also question how much they really know about video games. I believe there's a certain age that the kids should be allowed to play games such as Overwatch or Call of Duty (that's an example, COD is not that gory. . But on the flipside, they're probably just going to go behind the parents back anyway and play the game at a friends house, so why even have a rule? To me, I don't think seven-year-olds should be allowed to play extremely graphic video games. Not because "my child is going to become a murderer," but because the games are made to scare teens, not some little kid. I mean, it gets pretty bad if the TEEN can barely go to sleep from the game scaring them, so some seven-year-old probably shouldn't be playing it, logically.

 

There was a time where I could confidently challenge the "video games cause violence" talking point. Then, I got involved in Twitter Role-Play, which ended with me being cyberbullied by the Smashverse for 8 months because I blocked a racist. Add to this the fact that they were joking about killing Mexicans in response to leaked video game clips on YouTube and photoshopped pics of Kirby and Pit with guns, and you've got a group that Wayne LaPierre can highlight and say, "See! I told you video games cause violence!"

...and, oh yeah... Undertale. Its fans celebrate the game -- which rewards the player with the best ending when they complete the game without a single kill -- by sending death threats to voice actors and Markiplier.

As much as it pains me to say it, I can't dismiss the concept as casually as I could in the past.